The death toll from Hurricane Michael rose to at least 14 on Friday, as a clearer picture emerged of the storm’s destruction from Florida to Virginia, which could cost more than $15 billion by one estimate.

Virginia officials said that Michael, classified as a tropical storm by the time it plowed through the state, had killed five people there. Authorities also are searching for a missing woman whose car was swept away by floodwaters. The storm also killed at least five people in Florida, one in Georgia and three in North Carolina, authorities said.

“We still have flooding, downed trees, closed roads and a lot of debris,” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said at a news conference Friday afternoon.

Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, flattening houses, damaging the power grid and disrupting communication in several coastal communities. The storm, still packing hurricane-force winds, then tore through Georgia before tracking through the Carolinas and Virginia on its way out to sea.

“Bottom line: It was one of the most powerful storms that the country’s seen since 1851,” said Brock Long, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator. That is how far back the records go.

Mr. Long said he worries about “hurricane amnesia” and called for rebuilding to be done “in a resilient fashion.” “Building codes at the local and state level are the key to resiliency, not a bigger FEMA,” he said.

Moody’s Analytics said Friday its preliminary estimate found Hurricane Michael caused between $15 billion and $21 billion in property damage and lost economic output in the southeastern U.S. That is well below the company’s estimate for Hurricane Florence’s financial hit, which it pegged at between $38 billion and $50 billion.

While widespread flooding caused much of Florence’s damage, Michael’s toll was largely due to ferocious winds. The analysis said Bay County, Fla., bore the brunt but noted that parts of Georgia unaccustomed to hurricane-force winds took a major hit.

Photos: Surveying the Damage From Hurricane Michael

Category 4 storm’s center made landfall in a region rimmed with tourist beaches and fishing villages

A man walked through the damaged historical downtown district of Panama City, Fla., on Friday.

David Goldman/Associated Press

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A man walked through the damaged historical downtown district of Panama City, Fla., on Friday.

David Goldman/Associated Press

Moody’s Analytics said Michael’s economic toll would have been far greater but for its “relatively modest footprint,” which meant that the more densely populated Tallahassee area was spared its most damaging effects.

The deaths in Virginia include four people who drowned in separate incidents, said Mr. Northam. They included a 45-year-old man swept from his vehicle during a flash flood in Pittsylvania County, state police said.

In addition, a firefighter was killed when a tractor-trailer rear-ended a fire engine that was at the scene of a car accident on Interstate 295 in the Richmond area, according to the Virginia State Police.

As of Friday morning, state transportation crews were working to clear hazards on 1,200 roads, half of which were closed, Mr. Northam said.

The storm dumped 4 to 8 inches of rain across a swath of Virginia, possibly more in some areas, said Jeffrey Stern, the state’s emergency management coordinator.

Ed Baine, a senior vice president at Dominion Energy, said winds topped 75 miles an hour in places. State officials said about 565,000 electricity customers lost power at the storm’s peak. Mr. Baine said Dominion expected to restore power to the “vast majority” of its customers by late Monday.

The storm left a trail of destruction before it reached Virginia on Thursday. In southwest Georgia, a girl was killed in her home as the storm swept through the region. In North Carolina, a falling tree killed a man in his car, and state officials said Friday that a man and a woman died after their car hit a large tree that had fallen across a road. The Sheriff’s Office in Gadsden County, Fla., said on Thursday that the storm had killed four people there.

The American Red Cross said nearly 2,900 people spent Thursday night at Red Cross and community-evacuation centers across Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

As states turned to recovery efforts Friday, power outages remained widespread. Late Friday afternoon, just over 1 million electricity customers were in the dark in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, with a majority of the outages in Virginia and North Carolina, according to Edison Electric Institute, an association representing U.S. investor-owned electric companies. At the same time, the institute said, utilities had restored power to more than 1.7 million customers.